The text displayed may contain some errors. The text of this document has been generated automatically by an optical character recognition OCR program. You have done rightly to hasten your visit, for in a very few years, thanks to the hand of progress and civilisation, they who come to seek for Corsica will not find it.
If the diurnal record of the traveller be not always the form of narrative most agreeable to the reader it is, or ought to be, more faithful than any other, and consequently more useful to those who visit the countries described, especially when those countries have been little explored. IN the years , , and , I published illustrated journals of tours in Central and Southern Italy, and in Albania, three books which met with a successful reception from the Public, and were very kindly noticed by the Press.
The present volume consists of journals written with the same intent and plan as those which preceded them. They describe, nearly word for word as they were written, my impressions of the nature of the landscape in those portions of Corsica through which I travelled. It is possible that the literary part of this book may not prove of equal interest with that of the publications above named ; not, indeed, from any want of merit in the subject, but because I have now no longer the help of friends who then kindly assisted me by their criticisms, especially the late Robert A.
Hornby, Esq. But the aim of all these journals should be looked on as the same, simply to be aids to the knowledge of scenery which I have visited and delineated. I passed last winter at Cannes, intending to return early in the spring to Palestine, for the purpose of completing drawings and journals for a work already partly advanced ; but circumstances having prevented me from carrying out this plan, I decided on going to Corsica, rather perhaps on account of its being a place near at hand and easily reached, than from any distinct impression as to the nature of the country, or from any particular interest in its history, inhabitants, or scenery.
Prosper Merimee's beautiful little tale of Colomba," the scene of which lies in Corsica ; but I confess to having been chiefly led to think of going there by that necessity which the wandering painter—whose life's occupation is travelling. It was growing late in the spring when I had decided on going to Corsica, and time did not allow of my procuring books though plenty have been written on the subject or maps.
